Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Hedi Slimane's work captures my favorite subject: culture. He examines the way people identify themselves through music cultures and fashion while candidly capturing the adolesecnt search for belonging. There are punks, rockers, skaters, dandies and trash glamour subjects and more. Among the music he finds kids smoking, drinking and flirting in dive-y looking places, all in the search for self. Some people feel that they need to conform to the dress of a certain sub-culture while others search for belonging within themselves.

I was a punk for two and half years. By the middle of eigth grade I'd been reading Nylon Magazine for months and I suddenly felt that my spikes, chains and black nails were a costume. I nolonger needed that to feel secure. I began experimenting with fashion and found that clothes were much more fun when I stepped outside of boundaries and created. I decided that being fashionalby devoted to a subculture meant you had a solid stance on beliefs that accompany it. But I didn't have that, I was a child. I loved the punk music and wanted a place to belong. I didn't know much about punk or why it started. In the words of Marlon Brando "Sometimes people borrow some one else until they find themselves."

i really appreciate what you said at the beginning about being punk and wanting a place to belong cuz im actually in eighth grade and last year i had alot of insecurities and went a little punk too. But this year i've realized what i really love is fashion and music. i feel the exact same way of wanting some place to belong and i also love that quote about borrowing someone else until u find yourself. Thank you!

What you say it's so true... I was a teenager with a manly style, with manly clothes and no worries about fashion. But that was when I was fourteen, eventually I started to love fashion and care about my style in a good way. Just being myself

The paragraph beginning : "I was a punk for two and a half year..." is so powerful. I really like what you had to say so candidly! And God, these images are really beautiful. They are luscious but also keep their righteous grimey aesthetic.